


Fix You

by Edenos



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, IN SPACE!, Minor Injuries, One Shot, Post-Canon, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:14:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29596761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edenos/pseuds/Edenos
Summary: Adora gets Space Sick™ for the first time, and everyone frets about it.Featuring:-"What's a cousin?"-Fluffy sick scene, ANGSTY sick scene-Emotional support telepathic...cat?(This is a post-series fic, so there may be some minor spoilers for the entire thing. They are not super obvious, but they are there.)
Relationships: Adora & Bow & Catra & Glimmer & Melog (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 198





	Fix You

Catra rubs the sleep from her face and stares out of Darla’s cockpit. The red glow of daylight creeps over the jagged surface of an alien planet. Streaky clouds ribbon a purple sky, and the wind kicks up rust-colored dust down below. It never stops—an unrelenting gale that carves through canyons, blasts against twisted rock structures. But through the curtain of red, she can see them—the ruins of a civilization. Smooth, black spires rise from the ground and glitter in the early morning light. They repel the swirling dust from their polished surfaces, a halo of calm that almost makes them glow. Like they’re still sustained by the life energy of those who left them behind. Dead, vanished, or moved on? They aren’t sure.

She knows she should be asleep. And she _tried_ , but the knife of anxiety that twisted in her stomach hadn’t relented for the five, ten, fifteen minutes she’d laid on the makeshift bed and stared up at the ship’s interior. So she’s given up. The low thrum of the air circulators and oxygen generators grates against her thoughts. The ringing in her ears is even louder, despite the near-silence that’s settled over the ship. Looking out at the ruins in the distance acts as a focal point—for her fingers as they tap against her shins, and for the tension that tugs her shoulders back.

It wasn’t something they gave much thought to at first. But looking back, it’s always been inevitable. They go out. They explore planetary systems, talk to other civilizations, pick over the ruined ones to save what they can. And sometimes, someone gets Space Sick. Most of the alien diseases are harmless. No worse than a bad cold. A few have been scary, but nothing that a little glowy sword-magic couldn’t handle in the end. By now, it’s just become another fact of life.

Among their small crew, Bow heads the Space Sick leaderboard at eight mysterious illnesses caught. And every time another one knocks him off his feet, he shakes his fist and laments that the universe is out to get him—yes, him _specifically._ With stats like those, it’s hard to argue.

Standard operating procedure: they humor him while he mopes for a few days, and if things take a turn for the worse, out comes the sword to administer a medical bonk on the head.

At four times Space Sick, Catra holds the unenviable distinction of second-place. 

Standard operating procedure: she hides it for as long as she can. Insists that she’s fine. And when she gets found out, Adora asks if she wouldn’t rather be locked away and babied for a few days, like she was when they were kids in the Horde. 

Her answer is always the same—no, you doofus, _fix me._

And she does.

Catra watches the seconds tick by on the window’s digital display as the clock marks their slow crawl through time. In the depths of the ship, she hears a door slide open.

She doesn’t understand Adora’s playful ribbing. Doesn’t understand the warm spark in her eyes, doesn’t understand why she would mention the Horde at all. Her memories of being sick as a kid aren’t exactly fond ones. And Adora never laughed about it. Not back then. She was always _terrified_. When she would slip in to visit her, it always felt like the gravity in the room dropped a few degrees. Her eyes would get wide, her voice hushed with a palpable fear, and Catra would find herself trying to soothe her— _it’s okay, it’s just a cold, I’m (probably) not dying, stop worrying about me._

Maybe it’s because Adora never got sick when they were kids. Not even with the sniffles. It’s something she and Glimmer had in common, liked to lorde over the rest of them in good humor. Until a few months ago, when Glimmer found herself on the receiving end of some nasty space junk. And it _was_ nasty—one of the Bad Ones. No one laughed. You could almost wring the tension from the air. Adora was in with her for an hour, and when she was done, she dragged herself back to the ship’s cabin and slept for a day.

The jokes only started after Glimmer woke up and cracked the first one herself. She mock-whined about her debut on the Space Sick leaderboard, while Bow pointed out that she was far from the record-holder— _eight times, Glimmer!_ —and Adora teased her about their broken tie. She still remembers one of their exchanges. Remembers how even back then, it sent a stab through her gut. 

“Don’t worry,” Adora said, as she placed a glass of water next to her in the med bay. “I’m sure the universe will find some way to even the score.”

Glimmer looked up at her, bleary-eyed. She honked a huge sniff, then swatted her with a pillow as Adora threw up her hands and laughed. 

“Don’t you _lie_ to make me feel better. We all know you’re _invincible_.”

And everyone had laughed. Everyone except for her. Because they hadn’t seen her—in the Heart. Oh sure, they’d heard about it. In bits and pieces, but some parts of that day neither of them are eager to relive. And when you think about it, wasn’t that more of a poisoning? Or at least, that’s what she’d told herself to tamp down her unease. To untwist the knife. That kind of sickness was engineered, like the disk virus. So keep her away from old First Ones tech, and she’ll be fine.

She’ll be fine.

And then she’d laughed, too. 

Her hands squeeze over her crossed legs. The prick of her nails against her skin helps to distract her from the viscous anxiety that lies thick in her stomach.

“Catra?”

Glimmer’s voice startles her out of her thoughts. She didn’t even hear the door slide open behind her. Her ears twitch, but she doesn’t turn around.

“Can I come in?”

A few seconds tick by on the display. The silence stretches long between them.

Catra sighs. “You know, I get the feeling you’re going to anyway.”

Her boots snap soft against the floor as she steps inside. The door closes behind her with a hiss. “You’re up early.”

“Not like I could sleep.”

“How is she?” she asks.

Catra shrugs. “About the same.”

Out of her periphery, she sees Glimmer lower herself into one of the crew seats a marked distance away. “Sounds like you...finally got her to sleep.”

Catra turns to look at her. Mismatched eyes meet lilac.

“You heard.”

She knows that she’s lying if she denies it. The ship is big, but it doesn’t take much to propel sound through the vents. 

And there had been a lot of that last night.

Glimmer presses her lips thin, tucks one side of her feathery hair behind her ear, and murmurs an affirmation. And when Catra looks—really _looks_ at her, she can see the dark smudges beneath her eyes, too. She’s struck by that sudden urge to soothe, to explain. Just like she’d done with Adora all those years ago.

“They were just nightmares, mostly. That’s all.”

She bobs her head in a nod, and looks out into the dusty world outside. Her fingers pick at her boots, but she can see her slight relief in the way her shoulders slump forward.

“Good. I-I mean, not that she’s having nightmares, but—you know…”

She does. Because the terrifying thing about them hadn’t been the sobbing, or the shouting, although that had done nothing for her frayed nerves. No, it was what crept back in between. That constant thread of fear—that it was happening again. That she was getting worse. The whole night, she couldn’t keep her arms from shaking as she held her.

But her breathing never devolved into the death rattle that sometimes finds its way into her own nightmares.

She’d had to tell them—about the Heart. It almost felt like a betrayal, but she needed them to understand. Needed them to understand why she freaked out when Adora sliced her leg open in the ruins. To understand why she all but begged her not to go in the first place, after Bow floated the idea that maybe the planet had been another First Ones colony. They thought she was overreacting. They didn’t say it, but she knew. Even _she_ thought she was being paranoid, but…

But then Catra walked her back, and Adora passed out in the med bay. Spiked a fever, could barely talk, barely keep her eyes open. She called the other two back to the ship in a panic. After she told them about the Heart, the room got dead quiet. Glimmer and Bow stared at each other for what felt like hours. Then, they got to work. Bow opened communications with Entrapta in the strategy room, and Glimmer suited back up to go search the ruins for tech samples they could analyze. She’d never admit it, but the quiet determination set into their faces helped hold her together when she was on the verge of falling apart. And then she went back to Adora.

She takes a quiet, uneven breath, and turns back to Glimmer. “Don’t worry. If she was getting worse, I’d let you know.”

Glimmer’s brows draw together. Her fingers still pick at her boots. “Thanks. But why are you…?”

The unfinished question hangs in the air. Catra knows what she’s asking. Why did she leave? Why is she here?

“Melog’s with her,” she says, and her voice drops soft. “They said my...my emotions were starting to get overwhelming, so…”

“So they kicked you out?”

She stares down at her hands. 

“They said they’d come get me if anything changes.”

Glimmer shifts in her seat like she wants to come hug her. Her and Adora have always been more about errant elbows and headlocks, play-fights. But the three of them, they’re a very touchy-feely bunch. She’s not always on-board with that. 

Today, she thinks she wouldn’t mind.

Then Glimmer bites her lips and sits back down. Even though she’s a bit disappointed (would never admit it), Catra understands why. They’re not keeping their distance because they want to—she’d heard Glimmer’s footsteps last night as she paced outside the quarantine perimeter in the slips of calm. Heard the overtones of Bow’s voice float down from the vents, monotone with tension. No, it’s not because they want to.

They’re keeping it because they have to. Adora could be contagious, and she and Melog are the only ones who have been in to see her since the ruins. They might be vectors. Until Adora recovers, that’s not a risk they can afford to take. 

_Until,_ she repeats again, just to cement the word in reality— _until, until._ Her tail twitches against her shin. 

“It’s better this way. She wouldn’t calm down for—for anything until Melog came in last night. I think they’re helping her through them, somehow.”

“The nightmares?”

She nods.

They fall back into a lukewarm silence. Her ears start to hone in on the hum of the air vents again. Then Glimmer tugs at her hair with a frustrated growl that bounces around the ship, and Catra jumps. She turns to her, eyes shiny and pained. 

“I hate this,” she says. “I hate feeling so…”

“Useless?” She snorts, but there’s no mirth in it. “I know what you mean.”

“...I was going to say ‘helpless’, but—”

“Is there a difference?”

Glimmer leans over the arm of her seat, eyebrows squished together. “Catra, you’re not useless. You were with her all night, you—”

“Still couldn’t do anything.”

There’s a sharp edge to her own words. She blinks, and looks away. 

Glimmer’s voice picks back up, soft. “You were _there_. And that’s not nothing.”

Her instinct is to bite back with a snarky response. But when she reaches for one, she finds nothing. Feels instead a deep pang in her chest as she looks into Glimmer’s face. Tears sting her eyes.

But she’s saved when the door slides open behind them. Glimmer cranes her neck to see who it is, and Catra scrubs furiously at her cheeks before anyone can notice. Then she turns to look, too.

It’s Bow. He leans in the doorway as his gaze travels around the room, settles on both of them for only a second before moving on.

“Oh, good...you’re both here.”

He yawns and tries to cover his mouth, but misses by a few inches as he stumbles over to another empty seat and collapses into it. Catra looks at Glimmer.

“Um, is he okay?”

“I’m just _beautiful_ , Catra...thanks for asking.”

Glimmer’s cheeks puff out as she tries not to laugh.

“He doesn’t exactly do all-nighters.”

“Who doesn’t? ...Me? Yes I do. I... _crushed it_ …”

His head falls backwards and hits the chair with a soft thump. They look at each other. Glimmer scoots to the edge of her seat, starts to swing her legs down. But then he straightens back up. Stretches his arms out as his voice pitches with another yawn.

“What was I…? Oh yeah.”

He holds up a sheaf of papers with a lopsided grin. It only stays airborne for a few seconds, then falls back into his lap.

“We...did it. We extracted...and analyzed...every piece of tech that Glimmer brought us.”

Catra’s throat squeezes tight, and her fingernails dig into her palms. Across from her, Glimmer’s feet tap against the ground in an agitated rhythm.

“And?”

“And...it’s…”

There’s another drawn-out silence. At first, Catra thinks his pause is for dramatic effect. She has to resist the urge to stomp over and throttle him. But then his soft snores cut through the air. Glimmer rolls her eyes. She pushes herself to her feet, and grabs the front of his shirt to shake him.

“Bow! Wake up.”

He startles awake with a yelp. “What—what’s happening?”

“Your tech analysis. The one you’ve been working on all night? What did you find?”

“Oh, right-right-right. Um, let’s see…”

He squints down at the sheaf of papers in his hands, then tosses it over his shoulder. It splits apart as it falls, sends leaflets scattering across the ground.

“It’s—not First Ones tech. Entrapta and Hordak managed to...decipher the code, and...it’s more like Second Cousins, or something? I don’t know, but it’s not...sentient space junk. Just normal...space junk.”

His words taper off, but Catra can’t process anything past the first sentence. It’s not First Ones tech. _Not First Ones tech._ She expects the relief to be swift, to knock some sense of normalcy back into her. Instead, it trickles out numb from her fingers and squeezes her throat even more while the _stupid tears_ burn her eyes again. Glimmer’s voice floats over from the other side of the room, slow and deliberate.

“Catra? Are you...okay?”

She covers her face with her hands, and is horrified to hear the rough tremor that slips out between her fingers. “I’m fine. Don’t look at me.”

But she can feel them stare at her. 

As Bow starts to speak again, she peeks out from behind her fingers. His hand vaguely pets the air.

“Now Catra, just imagine...I’m touching your shoulder reassuringly, and…”

“Do I have to?”

He points a finger at her with a scowl. “ _Yes._ And it’s...very reassuring, and then I say…she’s going to be okay, Catra.”

_She’s going to be okay._

And that’s when the deathgrip on her throat loosens enough for her to breathe again. She wipes at her eyes as her hands fall from her face.

“Shut up. I know.”

Bow and Glimmer exchange a look, then glance back at her with twin well-knowing smiles. Heat pricks her cheeks, but they don’t goad her. Instead, Glimmer gives Bow’s shirt a sharp tug and pulls him to his feet.

“Well, I think I should get him to bed.”

“You mean it’s finally sleepy-bye time?”

“Please never say those words to me again.”

Catra puts a hand out as if she could tug them both back with an invisible string. Her voice isn’t loud, but it carries across the room.

“Wait.”

Glimmer turns to look back at her. Bow hangs from her arm to watch, his eyes barely open. 

Her hand falls back onto the bed, and her fingers curl into the sheets. “Thank you. And, um...tell him, too. You know, when he wakes up.”

“I’m awake,” Bow garbles. “Totally...heard you…”

Glimmer looks down at him, eyebrows raised. “Oh yeah? Then what’d she say?”

He opens his mouth and raises a finger in the air, but can’t come up with a response. His head falls back down with a sigh. 

She grins. “I’ll pass it along.”

They’re almost through the doorway when Glimmer stops again. Her fingers go pale against the frame as she leans back in. Her voice drops soft.

“You should try to get some rest, too. If you can.”

And then with a quiet _kssh_ of the door, they’re gone. She takes a moment to adjust to the quiet that settles back over her shoulders. Only this time, it’s not as heavy. The knife’s not as sharp. Glimmer’s parting words bounce around in her head. _Get some rest._ Her eyes find the pillow next to her, and for the first time in a day, it feels like maybe she can do just that. She eases her body down onto the bed. Stares at the red light that flickers onto the wall from outside, and closes her eyes.

Time slips away slowly, but it does slip away. Her thoughts go with it as she drops off into a dreamless sleep.  
  


She doesn’t know how long she’s under. It could be five seconds, or five hours. But as reality fades back in, she feels something rough and sandpapery scratch her arm. She opens her eyes. Melog’s face hovers inches from hers. 

She jumps back with a yelp. They meow something she doesn’t quite catch, then bat at her arm again. Their coarse paw-pad itches at her skin. Then she remembers their arrangement. The knife twists. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed.

“Hey, Melog. Is everything…?”

The space cat hops clear of her feet. They blink up at her with flat blue eyes, and drop two words into her head.

_Wants you._

Then they stretch and pad back out the door. Catra follows them.

Melog doesn’t say anything else as the two of them make their way back to the med bay. And even though anxiety pricks the back of her neck, Catra doesn’t ask. Tries instead to soothe herself with their unhurried pace, the way their plasma mane ripples without jagged edges or waves. They only make one stop when Melog nudges her into the kitchen with a pointed _mrrow_. She returns with a glass of water, and then not long after that, they’re there.

She stares at the med bay door. Her ears ring as they strain to pick up anything in the stuffy silence, but there’s nothing. Melog meows again. She pushes the button on the wall. The door opens, and she steps inside.

And something has changed.

 _“Catraah,"_ Adora groans.

Her voice is weak and scratchy, but it’s not hard to pick out the thread of mischief woven into it. Relief floods her like a wave.

“Hey, dork. How are you feeling?”

Adora churns over her words, then holds up a hand and squints like she can see into another plane of existence. There’s a flash of white light, long and sharp, but it disappears before it can solidify there.

Her hand flops back down onto the bed.

“Still out of commission.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” she says, blinking the blue afterimage from her vision.

Adora kicks her feet under the blankets with a huff. “Well, how do you _think_ I’m feeling?”

A grin twitches at her lips. She leans over the bed to help her sit up and hands her the glass of water. As she settles down into the chair next to the bed, Melog brushes against her legs.

“Can’t be that bad if you’re talking back to me.”

Adora gives her a withering stare as she lifts the cup to her lips. It almost falls from her fingers. Catra helps her steady it there, then places it on the side table when she’s done. Adora slumps back down into the pillows and presses her hands into her eyes.

“This is the _worst._ ”

“Oh, come on,” she teases. “Out of everything—and I mean _everything_ —you’ve had to put up with, this is the worst?”

_"Yes."_

“Even worse than me?”

She pauses to think about it. A sly grin plays on her face, and she swings a pillow at her head. “You’re a close second.”

Catra catches it as she smothers a laugh. Almost hits her back, on autopilot from their years of sparring together, but she catches herself. Holds it out to her instead. Adora takes the pillow back and hugs it to her face. Her voice picks its way through the cotton and fibers.

“You were right. I shouldn’t have been out there.”

“Wow.” She dips a clean rag into a bucket of chilled water on the ground beside her and wrings it out. As Adora slides the pillow back down her face, she slaps the cloth over her forehead. “You really are sick.”

“Can’t you ever take a compliment?”

Catra reaches down to tuck a strand of hair out of her face. Then she bends forward and gives her a soft kiss along her hairline.

“From you? _Never_.”

Adora’s eyes go wide. But after the shock wears off, her face drops into a scowl and she gives her another hard _thwack_ with the pillow.

“ _Catra!_ You can’t just _do_ that. What if I’m contagious?”

She spits the fabric out of her mouth with a grimace. “Then bad news, princess. I’ve probably already caught it. Besides, magical kisses worked last time, didn’t they?”

“Don’t—”

Her voice cracks, and the playful flicker in Catra’s stomach evaporates in an instant. Belatedly, she realizes that she may have gone too far. Melog raises their head from their place on the ground nearby and stares. 

Adora takes a second to breathe through whatever blocks off her words, then finds her hand and squeezes it. “Don’t joke about that. It’s not funny. If—if you get sick right now, I can’t fix you. You know that, right?”

As Catra watches her thumb worry over her knuckles, she feels a stab of regret. She exhales through her nose, and brings Adora’s hand up to press it against her face. 

“I know. I’m sorry.”

Adora doesn’t say anything. Just looks up at her with shiny eyes, like she’s trying to pick her apart and examine every piece to make sure she’s still whole. Catra returns her hand to the bed, and gives her a soft smile.

“Adora, I’m _fine_. And I’ll feel even better when you’re back on your feet. Speaking of which…”

She grabs her chair and scoots down towards the foot of the bed. In one fluid motion, she yanks the covers off of her legs. Adora huffs an affronted whine.

“Catra, it’s cold.”

“It’s just for a few minutes.”

She grumbles into her hands as Catra pushes up the hem of her pants to find her injured leg. And when she starts to pick at the bandages over the gash, Adora flinches away. Lead drops into her stomach. Did she hurt her? Or maybe it’s gotten worse? Wait. Gotten worse? Even though she sounds better today? But—

But then she hears the muffled whine that slips out from between her fingers.

“And you’re cold, too! Do you keep your hands in _ice buckets?_ ”

A grin flickers across her face as she goes to pick at the bandages again. “You weren’t complaining about it two minutes ago.”

Her cheeks go pink. When she catches Catra glancing back at her, she scowls and pulls the covers up over her head.

“But my legs were _toasty._ And you ruined it.”

“Man, you princess types are always so dramatic, aren’t you?”

“Like you can talk.”

“Okay, okay,” she says, unable to keep the laughter out of her voice. “Here.”

She stands up and pulls the covers back over her uninjured leg. 

“How’s that?”

“...A bit better, but…”

“But you’re still gonna complain about it, aren’t you?”

A smug grin settles over her face. “Yes. If Bow gets to, then I get to.”

“Guess I can’t argue with that,” she murmurs as she manages to tug the last of the old bandage free. The wound is still closed. There’s no creeping green—in fact, there’s hardly any red around the margins at all. She lets out a micro-breath of relief, and patches it back up with fresh dressings. “And...see? Already done.”

Adora cranes her neck to look. Her head falls back down with a sigh as Catra replaces the covers. As she hobbles her chair back to the front of the bed, she can see the exhaustion that’s settled onto Adora’s face. Can see it in the way her lips part, the way her gray eyes get fuzzy. Adora rolls onto her side, and Melog hops on the bed, curling up in the crook of her knees. Their dusky head pokes up to stare at her. Catra wonders if they’re going to ask her to leave again. But they just wrinkle their nose and sneeze. Adora looks at her. They both laugh.

In the tepid silence that follows, her gaze falls from Adora’s face and back down to her hands. She traces the lines on her palms with her eyes. The confession teeters on her lips.

“Adora, I had to tell them. About—about what happened at the Heart. I’m sorry. I know I should have asked you if it was okay, but…”

 _But I was scared_ , she thinks, and it’s the first time she’s let herself put it into those words. Even if they don’t come out that way.

“But I didn’t know what else to do.”

The silence that greets her words is painful. Her fingernails press small crescents into her skin. Then Adora reaches out and takes one of her hands. Slips her thumb under her curled fingers, and pries them up. When she looks into her face, she doesn’t see any anger there. Just a gentle smile.

“It’s okay. ‘S not like it was a secret, just...never came up.”

Something in her chest loosens. She exhales through her nose, and squeezes Adora’s hand in hers. “The good news is, Bow helped Entrapta and Hordak look at some of the tech from the ruins. It’s not First Ones tech. He...said something about second cousins?”

She blinks up at her. “What’s a cousin?”

“I—uh...I think it’s like, your children’s uncle or something? Bow tried to explain it to me, once.”

Her eyes narrow. “ _Whose_ children?”

Catra swallows a laugh and nudges the bed with her knee. “Look, I barely know what an uncle is, alright? If you really want to know, go ask him later.”

Adora returns her smile, but it doesn’t stick for very long. Her face slips into something more like contemplation. Her free hand picks at the blankets.

“Were you worried about it?”

“About uncles?”

She snorts. “No. No, about...the Heart.”

Catra blinks, surprised.

“You weren’t?”

“Not really. That was…” she pauses to think about it, scrunches up her nose. “It felt different. I thought I told you.”

“When?”

“Last n—” She stops. Catra can almost see her pick over what she remembers of yesterday. Her brow furrows. “Or, maybe not?”

She shakes her head. 

Adora sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, not your fault,” she says. “You were pretty out of it.”

Her voice catches on a yawn. “Was I? I don’t really...remem…”

Her eyes drag shut. Catra bites back a snicker, and watches the soft rise and fall of her chest. Her own eyes start to feel heavy. She leans back against the wall and stares up at the ceiling. But before she can nod off, something soft bumps against her knee. She opens her eyes. Adora holds out her extra pillow for her to take. 

One side of her mouth tugs up into a haphazard grin. “Are you sure? Then you’ll be unarmed.”

She garbles through the words. “Just shut up and take it...”

By the time her voice trails off, she’s gone again. Catra watches her sleep for a few more minutes. Then, she props the pillow up against the wall. Her head sinks into it, and she’s gone, too.  
  


When Melog paws her awake again, she’s not worried. Not at first. But as she scrubs the sleep from her face, she sees the way their plasma mane twists crimson. Their red eyes flash. She sits up bolt-straight, and they drop two more words into her head.

 _Needs you_.

And then they skitter back towards the door to take up sentinel in the hallway, a silent, frazzled shadow. Not wanting to leave, but unable to stay. Adora sits up in bed, her legs half-bent like she might try to run. Her upper body curls over itself, and her fingers twist into her hair. Her chest shudders with rapid breaths that dissolve into sobs before Catra can fully process what’s happening. Panic tightens her throat.

“Adora.”

She doesn’t respond. Catra grabs her by the shoulder and shakes her. It’s harder than she means to, but she can’t help it. The tremor settles back into her arms as her heart telegraphs her anxiety to every cell in her body. Her voice rises, cracks.

“Adora. Hey. Look at me.”

After an agonizing few seconds, she does. Her hands fall away from her head, and her eyes rove over her face, not quite seeing. Tears run thick down her cheeks.

“Catra?”

She takes her hands in hers to stop them from going to tug at her hair again. “Yes, I’m here. What’s wrong?”

Her face breaks. She shakes her head. The knife twists into her stomach as she flits through the checklist that’s forever been imprinted in her mind. She shifts her hands to feel for the pulse in her wrists, while her ears hone in on her breathing, and—

It’s...fast, but not unsteady. And her pulse is fine. It’s fast too, but it’s fine. Just another nightmare. A bad one if it’s enough to drive Melog out of the room, but a nightmare nonetheless. Adora curls into her like it’s the most natural thing. She shifts her arms so she can hold her more easily, then takes a quiet breath to steady herself.

“Tell me what happened.”

Her words reverberate through her chest.

“He—he pushed you—”

“Who did?”

She hesitates, the words held on her tongue. Her fingers grip the front of her shirt, and she squeezes her eyes shut. Tears slip out beneath them. 

She can’t say it. That tells her all she needs to know.

“Breathe, Adora,” she murmurs as she hears her diaphragm catch on inhales and hold them tight. “Other way…there you go.”

Her chest shudders with an angry exhale. “You’re not— _listening_ to me—”

“I am.”

She looks up at her, flushed face the picture of frustration. There’s something she wants her to understand, something she’s supposed to get. But as her mind churns over the pieces she’s been given, nothing jumps out.

Adora’s eyebrows squish together like she can read the blank in her thoughts. “You’re _not._ He pushed you, and—and you _fell_ , Catra, you fell, and I—”

Her voice chokes off as she fights for words. The image hovers in Catra’s mind, just out of reach.

“And I couldn’t— _fix you_ —”

Then it clicks.

The flagship.

When they came back for her. When she was so mired in his thoughts, his tangle-thread army that she had to fight her way to the surface for any breath of lucidity.

When she almost—

“Hey,” she whispers. “Hey. It’s okay.”

Catra puts a hand to her cheek and wipes away the tears there. She’s burning up. Her hand must feel like ice, but she doesn’t pull away. Instead, she bites her lips and leans into it.

“It’s just a bad dream, Adora. It is,” she insists when she starts to shake her head. “I’m here. I’m _okay_. You saved me.”

“No. No, I—couldn’t, I couldn’t…”

“You did. You saved me, and he’s gone.”

Adora looks up at her, searches her face. Her rapid-pace breathing starts to slow. She curls her fingers into her shirt.

“Promise me.”

A faint smile tugs on her lips.

“I promise.”

The moment stretches out as she evaluates her words. Then, she relaxes into her arms with a shaky sigh.

“Everything hurts,” she whispers.

“I know it does.”

“I want to go home.”

She takes a second to breathe through the stab of empathy the statement drives into her stomach. Distracts herself from it by reaching under the bed for a clean cloth. 

“And we’ll get you there. You just have to get better, first.”

“How long will that take?”

She wets the cloth in the bucket and squeezes it damp. “However long it takes.”

Adora looks up at her, face scrunched up in betrayal, and she can’t suppress a laugh. She swipes the damp cloth under her nose. Adora coughs in response.

“What, did you want me to _lie_ to you?”

“Maybe.”

She folds the cloth over itself and starts to clean off her cheeks with soft, broad strokes. “Okay, then it will take two minutes.”

“No, you have to make it...believable…”

Her voice trails off with a sigh. She can see her eyes try to tug shut again. Can also see how she fights it, as the little crease in her forehead deepens into a scowl.

“You know,” Catra says. “The more you sleep, the faster it’ll get here.”

“I don’t want to. What if I...go back?”

“Then you go back.”

“But I can’t—” Her voice starts to crack, but she catches it, holds it steady. Looks up at her, eyes wide and pleading. “I can’t lose you again.”

She hugs her closer. “Adora, you won’t. It’s not real.”

A few stray tears track down her face as she looks up at her. Catra wipes them away before they can get far.

“Will you...remind me?” she asks. “If I forget.”

“‘Course I will.”

The blankets rustle on the bed. For a moment, Catra thinks she’s tucking her legs up close to her body. But then Melog’s head pokes out of the gap between her arms, shrunk down to perfect hug-size. As they look up at her and Adora, their eyes shine a faint blue.

She snickers.

“And Melog will, too.”

Adora gives them a sleepy smile and scratches under their chin. “Hi, Melog. Sorry I scared you away.”

They nuzzle her face, and settle in with a yawn that flashes glowing teeth.

“I think you’ve been forgiven.”

Melog’s ears twitch. They mumble something, and she corrects herself with a rueful grin. 

“Never anything to forgive.”

Adora lets out a watery laugh. She wishes she could lean down and kiss her, but she knows it would probably upset her again. So instead, she combs her fingers through her hair, works out the knots with deft fingers.

“Get some rest, okay? We’ll be right here.”

Adora looks up at her, and nods. Catra can tell she’s gone as soon as she closes her eyes.

Later, they’ll look back and know that the fever-dream was just the final death-knell of an illness already beat. Tomorrow, she’ll wake up almost completely back to normal. And two more precautionary quarantine days after that, they’ll set a course for home. No one will joke about it until Adora looks over at Glimmer, sly grin on her face, and says “So, I guess this means we’re tied again.” And even Catra will laugh. Will start to understand the warmth in Adora’s voice whenever she teases her about getting sick as a kid. Because it’s not really a fondness at all, is it? It’s more complex than that. It’s something like crystallized relief—remember when we went through this together? Remember when it turned out okay?

But all that happens Later. They’re still stuck in the Now. And when Catra tries to peek into the days ahead, all she sees is a thick, uncertain haze of could-be’s. She knows she can’t fix Adora. Not the way she’s always fixed them. She doesn’t have magic powers—just ice-bucket fingers.

Still, she knows what she can do.

She can stay. Can stay and hold her as she sleeps, even as her legs start to cramp and the hum of the air vents overhead wedges its way into her consciousness, and the combined body heat of the three of them pricks at her skin.

That much, she can do.

And she does.

**Author's Note:**

> So I may have made Melog a _teensy_ bit telepathic. Is that canon? I have no idea, but I wrote it, I liked it, and I'm sticking to it. Also, maybe their pronouns are it/its? I'm not sure. Might change later.
> 
> In other news, I love Bow. The whole time I was writing his section, all I could think was, "Someone get the boy to bed."
> 
> Okay okay, one last thing. I have the executive dysfunctions and anxiety, so I may not reply to all comments but I do read every single one!
> 
> Anyway...that's all from me. Thanks for reading!


End file.
